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I give credit where credit is due, and both of your ideas were winners. 2 for 2... I guess you should quit while your ahead. I'm going to mount the foil circuits on a thin piece of ply so I can solder without melting anything, and then glue this onto the flight deck bottom. That's the only drawback to the soldering-to-foil scheme is melting the substrate which probably precludes soldering directly over styrene.

Now that all the lighting questions are pretty much answered I have no excuse but to get back to work and finish the carrier. While its nice to have four projects running concurrently (Bronx Victorian, Essex, Fairlane GTA and Nighthawks), it's not how I like to work since I really get satisfaction when I complete something. It's sort of a compulsion. So it will be back to the other thread for a while. See you there.

Train stuff

The carrier is finished and is on display at the other thread here in Modelers Corner.

Good news and bad news.

Good news: after a long wait just heard (yesterday) from editor of Railroad Model Craftsman mag that my article on the design and construction of the Bernheim Distillery is slated for publication as a three-part article. Don't have publication date yet, but soon. He requests that I take new pictures of the finished product on the layout using a sky blue background to block out any clutter. I bought two additional portable white boards at Michael's today, plus found 4' X 12' roll of sky blue "bulletin board" material that will make for a seamless background. I then went to Costco and picked up two more of their LED shop lights that are on sale for $20. They're about twice as bright as the florescent lights they replace and have better (less blue) color. Tomorrow I'll start changing out the lights and building the backdrop assembly and see what kind of pictures I can create.

Picked up the cut plexiglass for the showcase that's going to protect the Essex.

Bad News: came down with shingles on Father's day. Awful! Started taking Valtrex as soon as I knew what it was and hopefully it will clear up faster rather than slower. We've been putting off getting the vaccine since we were waiting for the new advanced drug "Shingrix" that is significantly more effective then the current one. Unfortunately (for me) my luck ran out. When this bout is finished, I will still need it since it can come back again. My son had it two years ago at age 42 and is an ophthalmologist and warned me and my wife to get it since it can be brutal especially if it comes around the eyes. I had all intentions doing so. I'm in my 70s and it's the time to get it if you've ever had chicken pox. It's a nasty, mean, sneaky virus that lives in you all your life until it decides to activate. How the heck does that happen?

Bernheim: Preparing for the Photography Session

Shingles is annoying, but with the Valtrex and Tylenol, I managing okay and sleeping well. I do believe that it's giving me a lesser case of it.

As things have it, I just met a very nice man my age here in Louisville who is as passionate about photography as I am about trains and model building in general. We had met earlier on a board we were on together, and he remembered that I am a proficient solderer. He had a hearing aid sterilizer that had a bad switch on a circuit board and asked if I could take a look at it. I replaced his switch and we found that we had much in common especially our professional career philosophies. Then along comes the note from RMC about needing a better finished model picture of Bernheim for the article and this gentlemen is going to help me photograph it.

Today I changed out the two fluorescents hanging near Bernheim with the Costco LED lights, and started experimenting putting the backdrop in place. Before I went to the trouble of attaching the sky blue bulletin board paper to the backdrop boards, I took an iPhone pic and sent it to the editor to see if what I had done was correct. I had two choices: put the backdrop at the rear edge of the layout, or put it directly behind the distillery. The picture I sent him was this.

He said nearer would be better. So I moved the panels to immediately behind the model. I then took another shot just to see how it works. The photographer's bringing professional lights with umbrellas so the front of the building won't be suffering in shadow as it does. The LEDs do provide significantly more and warmer light than the florescents so every couple of months when Costco features them I'm going to pick a couple up and in a year or so all the layout lights will be converted over.

Remember, all this backdrop will be blue and the lighting will be correct. It certainly isn't now. I am really excited about this article getting published…finally. I had really given up on it. Now I have to start thinking about the next ones. I should develop a more professional photo shooting area for the all the in-progress pictures. I'm noticing that folks that do construction articles regularly have their in-progress shots done with pretty good lighting and very plain backgrounds. You have to plan ahead for that.

Bernheim Article: Photography Session

Finished putting the blue backdrop up and took some images with my Canon EOS.

And here's the setup used, shot with my iPhone.

And here are two shots done by my photographer friend. He used a Nikon with a long Takom zoom lens and augmented with two remotely operated strobes with diffuser umbrellas.

This shot was done with the room lights off and really shows off the model's lighting.

This was shot with room lights and strobes. Is it my imagination or is my Canon shot sharper focused than the Nikon?

I'll let you all know when this will all be published. It is purported to be a 3-part article. Part one discusses using the computer to create the digital model and the remaining parts deal with construction.

As I was crawling around the layout setting up the backdrop I came to the awful realization that my city streets need to be ripped up and redone. The Strathmore-on-green foam was a failure on many levels, but since the dishwasher leak, the moisture put the nail in the coffin and has the paper delaminating all over the place. It looks like crap and doesn't meet my standards. It's a miserable job to do now since all the structures and landscaping is all around. I may remove paper and use grout as a road surface. It looks very real and hopefully won't delaminate. I may just paint the foam directly, or use thin Masonite as a road surface. Anything but what I've got now.

I don't think your imagination is running wild. The Nikon shot may be a bit "softer", but I see them both about equal in clarity. Perhaps the daylight shot without interior lighting standing out gives that impression. I wish my Nikon photos were as good!!!

Perhaps if you apply with the Kentucky State DOT, you can get a minority grant to resurface your roads (i.e. Senior Citizen). LOL!!!

Thank you. We have the wrong governor if I expect any infrastructure money…

Today, I'm going to put those two emblems on the GTA and give it a coat of wax and call that project done. I still have to make the cutouts of the correctly sized love birds which I will also do. I should have somebody take a picture of us now in the same pose and use that with the original picture behind. That could be interesting.

Night Hawks Cafe Construction Begins Again.

As promised I started back at work on it today. I got the second floor (first floor ceiling) fitted. I had to notch the heck out of it to clear the widen window boxes so it would settle down onto the floor supports. The second floor will not be decorated and will be blacked out, so the way the floor fits is immaterial. I did not attach the floor yet since there's a lot to do before that point.

But, what I did do was get the lighting installed. I used the very small surface mount LEDs soldered to adhesive copper foil laid out in a series pattern. I found that these small LEDs, while very bright, are also very delicate and heating too long while soldering does seem to kill them. I test them when isolated and then again when soldered into the foil and then again as a circuit. I'm now using CL2N LED driver chips. These little marvels eliminate all the guess work about what to do to limit the current in the circuit. You put the plus voltage on one of the three leads and the minus on the other end (the middle lead doesn't connect to anything) and regardless of whether you put 5 VDC or 90 VDC all you get out is 20 milliamps, which is just what the LEDs love. The limiting factor is the voltage drop across each LED. Each drops about 3 volts, so in a series circuit, with 4 LEDS, that's a 12 volt drop and I'm driving it with a 12VDC power source so all's well. If I was using a 6 volt source, I would use two drivers in a parallel circuit with 2 LEDs in each leg so each leg would drop the 6 volts. Again, I no longer have to worry about current. So with a 90 VDC power supply I could drive 30 LEDs in series with just one LED driver chip. This is so much easier than calculating the resistor values needed in conventional LED systems.

Here's the lighting under test.

And here's the array. The positive and negative terminals are on the bottom of the LED. They're close together so you cut about a 1-2mm gap in the foil, tin the foil, hold the LED on the solder and then heat each side until the LED settles in, and then get off. Again… too much heat and you can kill the LED. They're only $0.29 each so losing one or two is not a big deal.

I form the copper tape corners so I don't have to solder them. This is a trick I learned in the 70s when I was installing old school burglar alarms with the led foil tape on the window glass. The foil had to be continuous so you bend it back on itself, turn it 90 degrees and keep going. From this view you can see the widened window boxes. I will put on "sheet rock" to make regular looking walls.

I then masked each LED with a small piece of tape, premiered, and painted the ceiling flat white.

The last thing I did today was add the Plastruct stone wall appliqué to the bottom scale 3 feet of the building. This will be painted to simulate stone. I'm letting it dry over night and work on it tomorrow.

The Plastruct stone worked well in this application since it had nice smooth courses and makes a nice straight top edge which building foundations have. The windows mount from the inside to reveal some brick wall thickness. I'm using conventional Tichy windows turned upside down and mounted from the back which puts the upper sash on the outside and the lower on the inside as it should.

I realized today that the small, bottom, upside-down turret is nestled into the building so 3/4 of it is exposed. That means that the piece has to have a 90 degree notch cut into it, or I have to cope cut the buildings wall so the turret slips into it. I will probably be easier to cut the turret, but it has a ball bearing epoxied to the apex and an aluminum shaft that was used to hold it in the lathe chuck when I made it. I believe that an abrasive cutoff disk in the Dremel could handle the metal parts. We'll see.

I'm at a point where I have to pre-plan the assembly carefully. The interior probably has to be completely fit before the front window assembly goes in since it will hard to do it from the top down. It's also tricky just getting the floor plate into position without any walls or furnishing in place. I spend a lot of time just staring at what's built so far and building it in my mind to figure out the best approach. That's the one challenge with scratch-building that people don't speak about much…no instruction sheet. I also have to figure out the best time to paint the exterior since I can have the windows installed so painting should happen soon.

NH: Brick and Stone Painting

I did a test piece today to see how I wanted to paint the brick. The first two panels were done by spraying the mortar color and then dry brushing a brick red that I mixed up from artist's tube acrylics. I wanted a paint that gave some working time which these did. The last panel was the reverse. Leaving the Plastruct color untouched, painting the mortar color and then, before it dried, wiping it off diagonally so the color stayed in the mortar lines.

The dry brushing technique was too variable so I went with choice number three. Choice number two was using less paint on the brush with more repetitions. Number three is more subtle and I might give it an alcohol wash (or maybe not).

It then used this technique to paint the building and wiped the mortar off with a paper towel which I kept using clean sides. I then mixed up a matching color to the Plastruct color and painted those exposed edges which showed the backing plastic color (white).

I then hand painted the stone foundation using the same acrylics on a palate mixing various tones of grey and randomly painting the stone, while trying to leave the mortar color untouched. I think this needs some further treatment to make it less dramatic, possibly a wash or maybe a misting with some airbrushed light gray. I notice in the picture that I missed one of the window boxes. I'll have to remix some of that brick red...

NH Stone Painting

Talked with the RMC editor today and the article goes to press next month. He wants a re-shoot of the cover shot to get better lighting under the canopy. We were using synchronized strobes. This time we're going with studio lighting. Picture session will be next Tuesday. I'm getting excited.

NH: Interior Build begins (Part A)

I toned down the stone work by getting rid of the blackest color and painted it carefully with Tamiya Neutral Grey. I still want to overspray some light gray (just a dusting) to further subdue the harshness. I used a small brush and re-did some of the mortar lines as well.

I went around with another mix of brick red and put a second coat on all the window packing since I had completely missed one part yesterday and the rest weren't covered well enough. I lightened up the mix just a bit to improve the match with the Plastruct brick color.

It was time to start building the interior. As I noted, this all has to be done and in place before the ceiling goes in. I had three ways to fabricate the interior: 1/8" Masonite, thin Foamcore, or built up with styrene. Masonite is not so easy to cut and shape, Foamcore is not very stable especially in cross-section, which left using styrene.

I built the walls sort of replicating how real partitions are built using thin surface material supported internally with some framing. For the framing I used 1/8" square Evergreen stock. I laid out the door and pass through locations and glued the framing up to these lines. Then I cut the opening out with one side's facing in place.

I used Testor's tube cement again to give me a little more positioning time. The solvent cement sets so fast that you often can't get the piece down before it's already kicked. The sheathing is 0.020" styrene. I then applied glue to the frame and attached the second side sheet. I then cut its openings through the other side.

To attach the walls at right angles I pre-glued the square stock at the location on the through wall and left space in the sheeting before the frame piece so the two walls keyed together.

For the last turn I simply used a single thickness of 0.040" sheeting since this didn't need any thickness. Actually, none of the walls really need to be scale thickness except at the pass through to the kitchen which I could have simulated with just some thickening pieces right at the window. But, I makes me feel better to make them like real walls.

I test fit the walls in place. The front and back doors don't align well, but it doesn't matter since I'm no longer using that door. It will be covered by the exterior stair housing that I added to the design later when I came to the conclusion that there really wasn't enough room for an actual staircase in the building's confines.

NH: Interior Build begins (Part B)

I needed to think about the flooring before I went any further. The flooring needs to be added to the floor piece when it's outside of the building before gluing it in. I already had a good black and white checkered floor pattern that I used in the Distillery Boiler House, and put it to use again here. Actually, I designed this when building Saulena's tavern 11 years ago. I printed it out of 5 X 7 photo paper, and after dry, sprayed it with Grumbacher Final Fixative to preserve the inkjet ink.]

I tried the walls on the flooring. BTW: made two sets just in case I screw one up. One is sufficient to cover the space.

I made a wooden pass through sill and also pre-stained more wood strips for the door, window and baseboards. I noticed in Hopper's painting that the door has no frame at all. It's just an orange rectangle. I'm conflicted about how close to the painting I should be. On one hand, I'm trying to replicate the painting in 3D, but I've already deviated from the painting by making the counter rectangular, not a triangle like Hopper drew. The painting doesn't show a pass through since the wall is cut off before it would show. I did drill the hole for the support pole by clamping the ceiling and floor pieces together so the holes are in line. I have to make a ton of bar stools. Anyone know if there are any pre-built ones out there? I'm not sure where that door actually goes. Notice also the wall thickness next to the red head. It looks well over a scale foot with the glass bisecting it. My wall will not be that thick. It will be about a scale foot. (or less). According to the story, Hopper was painting a cafe that more or less existed in NYC. I will match that yellow and green as best as I can. It's a very well lit space and mine will be also. And I'm going to have sculpt the figures. John Armstrong did it, so I should be able to also. Heh…heh…!

I esp. like the stone foundation treatment you've done in your last photo. The black & white tile for the floor certainly ties it all together. You mention no room for an exterior staircase - what about a square, black wrought iron open cage elevator located inside from that time period? That would satisfy the need and also keep it in the time period. More work, of course - just a thought! BTW - looking very good!! I would also add the door frame - my guess is that the artist eliminated certain "known" details as unnecessary for the background of the painting.

NH: Interior Wall Paneling

Here's the building with the exterior stair. It looks like it belongs there and will be much easier to create than any kind of internal structure, especially an elevator.

I also was playing around with SketchUp and Podium rendering various views. I still haven't finalized how I'm going to build all the layers of millwork on the outside of the big window.

Spent time at the hobby shop today so I only worked a little over 1 hour, but got the flooring down and started sheathing the perimeter interior walls which need to be done before I drop in the partition walls.

I'm using thin styrene, 0.010" to simulate dry wall. I have more 1/8" square stock packing out the framing and giving a surface to glue to.

Because of the floor ledges, it necessitates doing the walls like a real building with sheet rock going on one floor at a time. The only area that doesn't quite work is where I used 1/4" square stock as corner reinforcement that is fatter than the rest of the wall framing. One can imagine that it a pipe chase going to the second floor.

On Monday I will continue with these wall. I will have to mask the flooring when I paint the walls.

NH: Interior Wall Finishing

Actually, I already have a 3D version since that's what was the basis of the orthographic drawings that I created. What you download from SketchUp's 3D warehouse is a complete 3D model. There are a few places to get it printed these days starting with Shapeways. My quess it would cost upwards of $50 to have them produced this way. I think laser cutting will be less expensive and be out of wood which could appear more realistic. I'll see what the estimate is.

Started the day preparing to paint the walls. I mixed Tamiya Flat Yellow, Flat White and a tinge of Flat Green to approach the shade in the painting. I think I got it pretty close. I had to mask the entire building to paint the perimeter interior walls. I start using thin Tamiya tape around the base board area, then use paper with thick Tamiya tape to cover the large areas. I used the thin tape to mask the inner surfaces of the window openings.

I used my old Badger airbrush to apply the paint to both the perimeter walls and the partition assembly. A few light coats did the trick. After the paint was dry I cut the pre-stained strip wood for the mill work. This included door framing and baseboards. Parts were cut with the Duplicutter II. The partitions are not glued, just posing for the camera.

Before I went any further I realized that I needed to add brick lintels and window sills to the exterior. I sliced off brick rows from the Plastruct sheet and then cut them to brick size, again on the Duplicutter. I used a steel edge to space the fence out from the tool's back. I find that the razor blade doesn't exactly cut to its fence which can leave a little ragged edge. Spacing it out a little puts the cut completely on the blade. To cut 45s, I use that piece of masking tape on the cutting surface as a guide.

Here's a collection of bricks waiting to be applied.

I finished the session by applying the first bunch of lintel bricks. When they're fully cured (solvent cement) I will trim any irregularity at the their bottom edge (tomorrow).

NH: 2 Steps Forward, 1 back

Today was one of those days...

Before getting back to work I decided to notch the corner of the building to accept the small upside-down turret. I had a drawing of the contour of this part and used it to make a plastic pattern that could be traced onto the building corner. All good so far...

I then made a sample piece to test the cuts to set if it worked.

It worked! So… we still good...

Then I traced the pattern onto the building's corner. And used the Dremel with a combination of carbide router and small diameter sanding drums. Again… we're look'n pretty good.

Everything was just great!

So I started back to work on the lintels. I'm going to finish the building with the brick lintels, but use simulated stone window sills. I put lintels on all the windows and doors and realized that one of the back walls is having the outdoor stair and it will block some of those so I removed the already applied brickwork.

Then it hit me! I CUT THE NOTCH IN THE WRONG CORNER!!!! WHAT??? Yup! I was so excited about doing it this way that I forgot to double check actually which corner I was destroying. It the front corner over the front window space that gets the turret.

So I immediately went into repair mode. I made brick replacement pieces that matched the brick courses of the existing walls, put some heavier backing plastic to rebuild the corner, then another layer of the same thickness that I used as a doubler behind the brick sheeting and then the actually replace pieces which were traced from each corner's cut. The insert pieces are sitting below the building. You can see the lintels that were removed in this image also. It's good that it will dry overnight since this corner was seriously compromised.

It won't be perfect, put after gluing the inserts in tomorrow, I'll fill the gaps and re-scribe the brick joints and paint with matching color. It's the back of the building. And there's a silver lining (I am nothing if not an optimist). It gives me another shot at cutting the opening and I wasn't all that happy with the fit in this cut because there was big chunk of 1/4" square stock reinforcing the corner. The front corner doesn't have this blocking so it will be easier to cut with the jeweler's saw. This accident didn't happen because I was rushing since I took the time to make the test piece. It was basically a lack of attention for the forrest while I was looking at the trees.